A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

No room for Australian Home Technology

We received ten copies of the launch issue of Australian Home Technology in one of my newsagencies. Beyond receiving too many copies – given our sales of this type of title – we do not have a spare pocket in this segment.  What do the publisher and distributor expect us to do? Either this title gets early returned or another title is returned early.

Publishers who complain about newsagent early returns need to look at their engagement in causing the problem through their title launches and product allocations.

On the launch of Australian Home Technology – it is frustrating that this has launched so close to Christmas. Newsagents will be too busy to support the title, to make space for it and to let shoppers know about it. the other question I have is one of relevance. Do we need the title?

Here’s what I want from magazine distributors:

  1. Control over new titles.
  2. Control over volume.

Since I am to be responsible for my level of indebtedness it’s only fair. Not having access to this will see more newsagents cut magazine space or exit the category altogether.

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magazine distribution

Terrific Good Health promotion

I like the digital bracelet watch being given away with the current issue of Good Health magazine from ACP. It helps make this title more valuable as a Christmas gift.

The only challenge is damage to the card holding the watch in some copies. In one of my newsagencies two thirds of the cards were damaged making the total product less appealing as a gift.

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magazines

Pacific to launch Bike magazine in January

Pacific Magazines is to launch Bike magazine next month, a title aimed at dedicated bike riders – a commercially valuable community. Here is some background from the press release:

Editor Bruce Ritchie, former long-time editor of Men’s Health, commented: “Bike is a magazine that will help every reader become the best rider they can be.

“From advice on how to train better and eat smarter, to lessons from the sport’s history and culture, tips from the pros, authoritative reviews on the best new bikes and gear, to simply celebrating the sheer thrill and fun of cycling, Bike is a must-read for anyone who wants to get faster, ride stronger… and have a blast on the road.”

Through my software company I work with bike retailers and know the value of this marketplace and the passion of those engaged as riders and retailers. I’m pleased to read of the launch of Bike and feel that it could do well for the newsagency channel.

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magazines

GNS launches $6M capital raising

GNS has today announced details of a share offer designed to raise up to six million dollars in working capital. The funds will enable the business to repay debt, invest in operations and invest in expansion.

I was surprised to read in the prospectus that of GNS’ 5,000 customers, only 505 are shareholders.

The raising is a positive move for GNS and the newsagency channel more broadly. It is an opportunity for newsagents to invest in a key part of their own national infrastructure.

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Newsagency management

Beware offers of lease negotiation help

A range of people and organisations offer to help newsagents with lease negotiation. I urge newsagents to do their research before signing on with any party making such an offer.

Ask for recent references and do your own research.

One newsagent recently found that the party they were paying to represent them was negotiating for another party to take their lease and business.

It is one thing to face a competition head on and another entirely when your own ‘family’ is stabbing you in the back.

Bottom line: when it comes to lease help, do due diligence and ensure that claims being made are truthful.

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Ethics

frankie sells out again

We have one copy of the latest issue of frankie left. Our sales of this magazine continue to grow.

frankie extends baskets of existing shoppers and it attracts valuable new shoppers. In each of my newsagencies the allocation is good – a little low if anything but that’s the nature of shopping centre newsagency magazine sales.

I know of several newsagents who have early returned frankie leaving less stock on the shelves than their recent average sales. This is definitely not a magazine you should treat this way as you;re likely to lose the customer to another retailer.

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magazines

A reason to feature AWW

Thanks to the special on the Nine Network last night newsagents have a terrific reason to ensure copies of The Australian Women’s Weekly is in show to leverage impulse purchases. The show was like a long ad for the magazine.

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magazines

21 free Christmas marketing tips for retail newsagents

Here are some free Christmas 2012 marketing ideas for you to consider using in the run up to Christmas:

  1. Collect donations at the counter. Setup a big jar and say you want to fill it by Christmas with change for a named local charity your shoppers will know. Choose a charity you  believe in. Label it: SPREAD SOME CHRISTMAS CHEER.
  2. Harvest shopper data. Run a competition with a terrific hamper as a price. Get customers to enter with the name and email address. Indicate you’ll add them to your database. Use the database next year for marketing.
  3. My Christmas. Setup a pinboard somewhere in the shop for locals to post stories about their Christmas – from the past or plans for this year. Make this a place for people to share something of themselves with their community.
  4. Helping hand at Christmas. Find out what local charities are doing at Christmas and offer to promote this for them. Put together a one page flyer and give it to your shoppers so they can support any of these groups.
  5. Best Christmas recipes. Setup a noticeboard somewhere so locals can post their favourite Christmas recipe. Get them to tell something more than just listing the recipe.
  6. Locate stock by gift recipient. Consider creating displays targeting the recipient, especially those hard to buy for like Dad. You could have a sign: gifts for Dad for under $30 for example.
  7. A carol discount. Offer a discount to a shopper who comes in singing a carol. Make the discount worth their while. Consider nominating the carol you want to hear this year.
  8. The best part of 2012. Become a beacon for positive stories. Setup a noticeboard for customers to post their stories on the theme – the best part of 2012. This will help get your  business known as a positive place.
  9. Customer endorsements. Invite your customers to write on a specially designed card why they bought what they bought and use these cards as part of your product merchandising – endorsements from other shoppers for the item.
  10. Dress for Christmas. Get T-shirts printed or an apron or some other garment for your customers so they can feel different to the usual year round uniform. Get them to be part of Christmas with what they wear.
  11. Move it. Each week, move product around, keep the shop looking Christmas fresh and people will buy more. While moving stock is hard work, the pay off is that shoppers will find “new” things.
  12. Christmas art. Invite school, kindergartens and play groups to provide art with which to decorate your shop. Offer a modest prize for the winner. Invite public voting if you like. Be proud in showing off local art. This will bring families in to show off and show you as community connected.
  13. Really connect with a local charity. Offer a local charity coupons (in a catalogue) to distribute which provide a discount off certain product categories on presentation. In return, give them a commission from each sale. For example, the coupon could offer 10% off any gift and you could give the charity 5% commission on every sale. A good charity will promote the coupons for you.
  14. Kris Kringle. With Kris Kringle giving growing in popularity, display your gifts based on price point. Signpost them as Kris Kringle gifts. Show people what to buy.
  15. Give gifts to shoppers. One day each week give gifts with every purchase. It could be a chocolate, a fridge magnet or a calendar. Whatever you give, make sure it is something people will like and is easily given away from the counter. Get known as the shop which gives more. Choose gifts related to what you sell. For example – a bag for holding jewellery, cleaner for homewares, recipes from cooking magazines, a voucher for a free service if you sell items requiring servicing.
  16. Sample what you sell. If you sell chocolate, offer samples. There are ways to do this with the food health regulations. Candy companies will tell you that offering samples drives sales.
  17. Use aroma. Choose a smell for Christmas and use a vaporiser to let this waft into the shop. Darrell Lea stores do with well with a liquorice smell. I have seen store do it well with a pine tree smell at Christmas. Tap into a sense which is not often used in retail.
  18. Manage shop floor traffic. With more customers in the shop this time of the year, managing lines is important. Have your best people at the counter and driving traffic so that wait time is kept to a minimum.
  19. Specialise. There are many gifts you can sell by showing that they relate to a highly specialist gift giving occasion: teacher, neighbour, priest, local service provider, gardener. Promoting a gift for one or more trains your customers about giving such a gift and getting it from you.
  20. Good counter offers. Have two impulse items at the counter to be pitched in every sale. Gift tags, Christmas candy or a trinket for car, work or home. Research suggests that 18% of sales can include a counter based impulse purchase. Get the product right and tap into the opportunity.
  21. Add value. Seize every opportunity. Have tape with gift wrap, gift bags near gift items, pre-wrapped gift items, an up-sell opportunity printed on receipts, a promotional flyer in every bag and a logical layout to the store – zones for product categories with good adjacencies.

I published these last week through my Point of Sale software company’s blog. yes, There are too many ideas – choose what works best for you.

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marketing tip

Making the most of product tags

One of the important tasks when tidying on the shop floor during busy seasons such as christmas is to ensure that all product tags and labels are set to fully inform shoppers. This makes browsing easier and, with an especially good tag, improves the chances of sales success. Take the tag for this bottle bag from Hallmark – if the tag was left inside the bag browsers not taking notice might miss what the product actually is. The shape of the tag and the text make browsing the item easier and enhance the prospects of purchase.

So, we ensure that our team members know to not only tidy products but also ensure that useful tags, like this one, are showing.

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Gifts

Hobbit movie driving sales

In addition to Hobbit branded products we are pushing the various magazines with Hobbit cover stories and they’re selling well. I urge newsagents to make sure they have the magazines next to each other, with the full covers on show and in a location those who would not usually purchase these titles will find them. They’re all selling well! … another way we can grow magazine sales.

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magazines

Newsagents engage in practical early return discussion

A group of newsagents met online on Thursday to discuss magazine management including early returns. It was a practical round table discussion of the processes people follow and how to undertake early returns based on sales data as well as how to set your software to suggest early returns based on recent sales history.

What was interesting was that unlike many magazine discussions, this one was about business and practical steps – without the usual emotion associated with magazine supply.

This meeting was facilitated through my newsagency software company and open to anyone as promoted here.

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magazine distribution

Selling out of Christmas craft magazines

We’ve experienced a terrific run on our Christmas-themed craft titles. We only limited sock left. we facilitates the run with front of display full-face promotion of all Christmas themed craft titles. Year on year we are well ahead. For a small effort we are showing another way we can grow magazine sales.

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magazines

Tapping into another brand … Spiderman

Another benefit of selling the Hallmark Christmas ornaments is the brand connection Hallmark delivers. take the Spiderman ornament, this is a must-have for Spiderman fans and something that will generate good word of mouth for us.

We are promoting the range on one of our gift tables facing into the shopping mall – to maximise the brand recognition opportunity.

This ornament range connects with our commitment to the collectible shopper, a valuable shopper and one I’d encourage more newsagents to connect with.

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Gifts

Promoting yen

We are promoting the latest issue of yen with the full cover on show including the bonus cd gift – their 10th birthday mix tape.  yen is another title, like frankie, appealing to an important demographic for us and thereby delivering value before the sale of the title itself.

We have the magazine in full-face display so shoppers can see the free CD.

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magazines

I’d be surprised if Coles paid to advertise Woman’s Day

The Herald Sun and the Daily Telegraph today have quarter page ads promoting the special issue of Woman’s Day as available from Coles supermarkets.

I doubt Coles paid for these ads.

My understanding is that Coles product advertising is funded by suppliers. I guess ACP paid for the ad.  If true, shame on ACP for treating their retail channels differently and for ignoring newsagents, their most valuable retail channel.

I can see why Coles would have asked for funding – because ACP wanted them to do something beyond the usual with the weekly title. Whereas newsagents will invest their own time and space in these special issues, supermarkets only engage if they are compensated for what they consider to be extra work.

I’d love ACP to comment on this.

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Ethics

Facebook not the platform for business we thought it would be

For a while now I have been questioning the value of Facebook as a marketing platform for business. Their constant changes of what shows in the news feed and changes to business rules have made the platform frustrating.

While it is terrific to get plenty of likes for your Facebook page and there are some who successfully use this to communicate with their customer community, there is a growing community of people concerned with where facebook is headed.

Mark Cuban, Chairman of the Dallas Mavericks and Chairman of HD Net, wrote about this recently at The Huffington Post. He gets to the heart of what Facebook in:

Facebook is what it is. It’s a time waster. That’s not to say we don’t engage — we do. We click, share and comment because it’s mindless and easy. But for some reason Facebook doesn’t seem to want to accept that its best purpose in life is as a huge time-suck platform that we use to keep up with friends, interests and stuff. I think that they are overthinking what their network is all about.

As far as a platform for reaching out to uncover new customers for any of my newsagencies, I am finding Twitter to be a far more useful and less costly platform. I am also able to more easily see the reach of what I put on Twitter than Facebook. That said, I’ll still use Facebook to connect with existing customers. We do live, after all, in a world with more routes to market than ever before.

I mention this today as there are social media experts pitching their service to newsagents, saying they can help you achieve plenty of likes for your newsagency Facebook page. Do your research before you go and give them money to achieve something that may be of questionable value.

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Newsagency management

Another good collectible product

More newsagents are having good success with Golliwog products. I put them in the collectible category as this is what drives many purchases. This and nostalgia. I saw a shopper the other day purchase because she had a golliwog as a kid and wanted to introduce them to her grandkids. there was a time there would have been concerns about the political correctness of golliwogs. This is not a concern I hear expressed today.

The photo shows the range from Gibson.

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Gifts

We cannot get too much One Direction product

Just when we thought we were at capacity for One Direction product, more official One Direction arrived. We’d forgotten about these.  We have them in this display unit at the counter as well as on the wall of One Direction product we have in-store.

I like the consistency of branding of all the items and the unit itself.

Having a complete packaging like this makes display easier and helps guide shoppers to purchase more than one item at a time.

Our two approaches with the 1D product are to fans and to those buying gifts for fans. This is working well for Christmas buying especially.

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Gifts

Terrific Take 5 Christmas gift tag gift

I love the free Christmas gift tags wrapped around the cover of the latest issue of Take 5 magazine. They a good value gift, a smart gift with the magazine. We have placed copies of the magazine at the counter so that shoppers can see the gift tags and hopefully purchase it on impulse.

I appreciate that the tags themselves don;t carry the Take 5 branding. This is a thoughtful move.

4 likes
magazines
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